FIG. 1 is an illustration of a conventional computer-telephony integration (CTI) system. An incoming call 60 is received by a switch 90. The switch passes information about the call to a CTI server 80. The information passed may include, for example, the calling line identification (CLI), sometimes known as automatic number identification (ANI), and/or the dialed number identification. Switch 90 may also be provided with an additional facility, such as an interactive voice response (IVR) unit (not shown in FIG. 1) to obtain additional information from the caller, for example an account number or such like. This additional information may also be passed to CTI server 80.
The switch 90 routes the call through the telephone network 101 to a telephone 121 belonging to an agent 120. For example, the switch may route a particular incoming call 60 to agent 120B having telephone 121B. The CTI server 80 may instruct the switch 90 to which particular agent the incoming call should be forwarded. Alternatively, the switch 90 may make this decision through some other mechanism, such as agent availability (and may notify the CTI server 80 accordingly).
In addition to telephone 121, each agent 120 is also provided with a workstation 122. The CTI server 80 has access to a customer relationship management (CRM) database 70. Note that although CRM database 70 is shown in FIG. 1 as a single system, it may comprise multiple databases and/or systems spread across an enterprise. The CTI server 80 can use information about a particular call provided by switch 90 to look up information relating to the caller in the CRM database 70. For example, this information may represent the name and address of a party associated with a particular calling line identification, as well as information about previous orders made by this person, etc. The CTI server 80 then provides this information to the workstation 122 associated with the agent 120 who receives the call in order to assist the agent in handling the caller. For example if the incoming call 60 is to be routed to telephone 121B of agent 120B, then the CTI server accesses information about the caller from CRM database 70 and forwards this information to the corresponding workstation 122B.
Call centres having CTI such as shown in FIG. 1 have been around for many years. In many cases the system shown in FIG. 1 is internal to a particular organisation. In other words, switch 90 represents a PBX and telephone network 101 represents the internal telephone network of the organisation. Likewise computer network 102 represents the internal computer network (e.g. intranet) of the organisation. This configuration is sometimes referred to as CPE (customer premises equipment).
An alternative configuration, sometimes referred to as SPE (service provider equipment) involves locating CTI server 80 within the general telephone network, with switch 90 being a central office switch that forms part of the overall network run by a carrier. In this configuration, the telephone network 101 may be the public switch telephone network (PSTN) and the computer network 102 may be the Internet. There may be additional equipment (not shown in FIG. 1) to link workstations 122 to computer network 102 and/or telephones 121 to telephone network 101. For example, workstations 122 may be attached to an internal network, such as an Ethernet, which is then linked to computer network 102 by a router and firewall, while telephones 121 may be linked to telephone network 101 by an automatic call distribution (ACD) unit.
There are some drawbacks associated with the architecture of FIG. 1. For example, the CTI server 80 may be relatively expensive. In addition, it is necessary to provide the CTI server with access to the CRM database 70. Generally this requires the CTI server to be able to submit queries to the CRM database and to be able to understand the responses—e.g. by providing the CTI server with access to the database API. In practice, the majority of call centres in the UK do not have a CTI server; rather workstations 122 typically access the CRM database 70 directly, without using (or benefiting from) any telephony information acquired by switch 90.
WO 00/54485 discloses a system for administering call set-up in a telecommunications network. A web page stores call handling data for a caller in XML or some other predetermined format. Such a web page typically contains an identifier and title, a policy type and owner, and various rules. Upon connection of a call to a switch, the information associated with a call is converted to keywords for a search engine to locate the web page corresponding to the initiating caller, thereby allowing the call to be handled accordingly.
It is common for organisations to outsource CTI and/or call centre operations to a third party. This strategy may be adopted by very small organisations, which may only have one incoming telephone line, as well as by larger organisations. In some cases the third party may provide CTI services to assist the organisation in handling the call itself, while in other cases the third party may be responsible for complete handling of the call (i.e. the original organisation is not involved at all in handling the call).
One problem with a third party call centre model concerns the provision of access for the CTI service provider (i.e. the third party) to the CRM database of the client (i.e. the organisation on whose behalf the hosted telephone service is being provided). For example, the client may provide the CTI server with its own copy of the CRM database, but this copy may not always be up to date. In addition, the CTI server may now have to support access to potentially multiple different CRM database formats for multiple different clients, adding significantly to the cost and complexity of the CTI server itself. Furthermore certain CRM data may be unavailable to the service provider, which may in turn limit the functionality that the CTI server can provide.
Another difficulty is that smaller organisations may not have the capacity to maintain a proper CRM database. This has generally meant that such small clients have not been able to benefit from full CTI services.